Major Catholic Organizations Push for Healthcare Overhaul Despite Abortion Mandate
….St. Vincent de Paul says of abortion inclusion in health care bill, “The bishops’ office has advised us that that’s not accurate”….
By Kathleen Gilbert. July 29, 2009, LifeSiteNews.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Three major Catholic organizations have issued a video and an action alert urging constituents to tell their legislators to immediately enact health care legislation, despite the vast abortion expansion embedded in the bills currently under consideration.
“Please call and e-mail your Representative in the next 24 hours expressing your support for Congress to enact health care reform now,” the groups urge in an alert released last week. The page hosted by St. Vincent De Paul offers contact information and email forms for congressional offices.
“Saint Vincent de Paul is partnering with Catholic Charities USA and the Catholic Health Association to amplify our collective voice to let Congress know that health care reform can not wait,” it continues.
The call to action echoes those of President Obama, who has been aggressively pushing through a health care plan in Congress that pro-lifers have strongly condemned as containing “the biggest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.”
Pro-life lawyers say that the government health care insurance is bound to include abortion as an essential health care benefit and would be funded by taxpayer dollars, unless an amendment is introduced to specifically exclude abortion. However, all such amendments, including amendments to protect doctors’ conscience rights, have failed in both the House and Senate………CONTINUED……. Continue reading
Catholic Charities Align With Anti-Life Proposals
American Life League says two prominent Catholic charities have “divorced themselves” from church teaching in supporting the Obama administration’s healthcare proposal.
The two charities — the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Catholic Health Association — recently released a notice to their members encouraging them to support healthcare reform. “We must maintain momentum for health care reform efforts with calls and emails [to members of Congress] supporting health care reform immediately,” the notice read.
In addition, the Catholic Health Association developed a video for YouTube that shows people displaying messages in support of healthcare reform.
But American Life League president Judie Brown says the healthcare bill is contrary to Catholic teaching in several areas. For example, she points out, it will require taxpayers to pay for abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy. The healthcare proposals also include forms of euthanasia — end-of-life care – that she argues actually translate into ending life care.
“…It’s appalling to us that the St. Vincent de Paul charity, which is a charity that reaches out specifically to the poor, would in any way be involved in endorsing this tragic healthcare proposal,” Brown shares. “The Catholic Hospital Association could lose tax funding if they were able to stand up and defend Catholic teaching instead of pandering to Obama, which is what they’re doing.”
It is wrong, says the pro-life leader, for the organizations to be “sending a message to Catholics throughout the country that it’s just fine for Obama healthcare to kill babies and kill the elderly….”
In addition, she argues that the two charities — in supporting the current proposals for healthcare reform — are “undermining the very foundation they exist to protect and foster: the dignity of human persons and the sanctity of their right to life.”
Would You Agree With MSM’s Andrea Mitchell?
‘(People) May Not Know What’s Good for Them’
“You’ve got 47% of the people in our NBC/Wall Street Journal opinion poll who have health insurance who don’t like what the president is doing. The problem he’s got — 47% of the people who’ve got coverage don’t want change. They don’t like what they’re hearing. Now, they may not know what’s good for them, but the problem is that he always knew he was going to have to persuade people with insurance, that’s the largest number, not the people without insurance, for expanded coverage. So they’ve got a real problem.”
The BIG Lie
“We spend about $6,000 per person more than any other industrialized nation on earth — $6,000 more than the people do in Denmark, or France, or Germany, or — every one of these other countries spend at least 50 percent less than we do, and you know what, they’re just as healthy.”
–Barack Obama
The American Spectator’s Philip Klein explains why this is a lie: “Obama is correct that all of those countries spend less per person on health care, but it isn’t anywhere near $6,000 less. The widest gap among the countries mentioned, between the U.S. and Denmark, is $3,778 per person. Of course, other systems don’t keep costs down with magic wands, but with rationing care to the sick
– something Obama denies he wants to do in the U.S.” Indeed, there’s no question that our system needs some treatment, but ObamaCare is not the right prescription.
Red October Looms for ObamaCare
….”Walter E. Williams points to the Founders’ own words on the lack of constitutional authority for such actions, adding, “What we’re witnessing today is nothing less than a massive escalation in White House and congressional thuggery.”….
Patriot Post, Friday Digest – Vol. 09 No. 30
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Americans can breathe a sigh of relief, however briefly, because Congress will not pass health care legislation before lawmakers depart for recess on August 7. “This bill, even in the best-case scenario, will not be signed — we won’t even vote on it probably until the end of September or the middle of October,” said President Barack Obama.
In a sense, Obama is admitting the unpopularity of the major proposals being bantered about in Congress. “This has been the most difficult test for me so far in public life,” he complained, “trying to describe in clear, simple terms how important it is that we reform this system. The case is so clear to me.” And the case is equally clear to us that Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress are acting unconstitutionally. Look it up — health care ain’t there. Economist Walter E. Williams points to the Founders’ own words on the lack of constitutional authority for such actions, adding, “What we’re witnessing today is nothing less than a massive escalation in White House and congressional thuggery.”
That said, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) asked rhetorically, “Is health care a constitutional right?” He answered, “Well, we believe that people do and we’re introducing a constitutional amendment just to make it real clear so that you don’t have to infer or assume that that’s a given and all that.”
What Conyers and other Democrats don’t understand is that, as columnist Rich Hrebic explains, “A right is not a guarantee that the government (i.e., other people) will provide you something for free. We have the right to engage in religious expression, but that doesn’t mean that the government pays for the construction of the church. We have the right to peacefully assemble, but the government doesn’t promise to supply your transportation. You have the right to keep and bear arms, but don’t expect the government to provide you with a free firearm and bullets. You have the right to free speech, but the government won’t grant you free radio or TV air time. What makes something a right is not whether the government can force somebody else to pay for it.”
But back to the proposal. House and Senate negotiators are working to cut the cost of the bill by $100 billion — cuts that have suddenly allayed the concerns of so-called fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats. The compromise still includes major tax increases and a public option health entitlement, which were supposed to be deal killers for these “principled” Blue Dogs.
The Senate Finance Committee claims that its package now comes with a price tag of $900 billion over 10 years. Such projections are laughable for several reasons: The unpredictability of how many will switch to the “public option,” how that plan will affect other plans on the market, and the cost of actual medical care in general. Beyond that, the Congressional Budget Office said that Obama’s plan to cut medical costs by shortchanging providers in order to offset the cost of the bill is a hoax. “In CBO’s judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized.” No savings. So what’s the point, Mr. President?
Democrats have proposed one way to raise money for the bill — tax payroll. The Wall Street Journal writes that the tax could reach 10 percent. So much for “no tax increases for those making less than $250,000 a year.”
Democrats have also proposed yet another creative way to raise money for the bill — tax soda (known simply as Coke down here in the South). The CBO estimates that a three-cent tax on soda, including Gatorade and other sugary or energy drinks, would generate $24 billion in the next four years, all while fighting obesity. We have been through this before. If Congress taxes something expecting people to stop using that something for their health, the revenue source dries up. Brilliant. We say, “No taxation on carbonation!”
All in all, if the public option is so good, why don’t Democrats in Congress want it to be their health plan? Amendments requiring them to be covered by the plan have been defeated in both the House and Senate. One reason for the defeat might be the example of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who, if his case went before a review board, could be denied his current level of cancer treatment. One might say he’d be left to sink or swim.
THE FOUNDATION
Patriot Post, Friday Digest – Vol. 09 No. 30
–James Madison
http://patriotpost.us/
Mathew Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel, Calls Obamacare “…A Euthanasia Bill for America….”
….”…it is a pill that would cause economic suicide,” said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. “It’s a euthanasia bill for America.”. . . Staver notes that under Section 163, the government would be allowed to have real-time access to individuals’ finances, including direct access to bank accounts for electronic funds transfers . . . “It reflects a repressive regime worse than China’s one-child policy. It’s going down the road for a government that manages the most intimate matters of your life regarding health and safety.”….
By Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily, July 31, 2009
The Democrats’ proposed national health insurance plan would dictate medications, treatments and mental health services; determine coverages individuals are allowed to have; and operate with real-time access to personal bank accounts, according to a new analysis.
And it’s worse, a critic said, than China’s mandatory one-child policy.
“In the same way that the bill pushes elderly or the sick toward euthanasia, it is a pill that would cause economic suicide,” said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. “It’s a euthanasia bill for America.”
Congress members have admitted they have not read the more-than-1,000-page bill, and Staver’s organization is one of the first to go through it and offer an analysis.
In the Liberty Counsel analysis, Staver notes that under Section 163, the government would be allowed to have real-time access to individuals’ finances, including direct access to bank accounts for electronic funds transfers.
Under Section 1308, the analysis finds, the government will dictate marriage and family therapy as well as mental health services, including the definitions of those treatments. Under Section 1401, a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research would be set up, creating a bureaucracy through which federal employees could determine whether any treatment is “comparatively effective” for any individual based on the cost, likely success and probably the years left in life.
It also, according to Staver, “covers abortions, transsexual surgeries, encourages counseling as to how many children you should have, whether you should increase the interval between children.”
The plan would allow, in Section 1401, for the collection of information about individuals’ health records, both “published and unpublished,” and recommend policies for public access to data.
“It reflects a repressive regime worse than China’s one-child policy,” Staver told WND. “It’s going down the road for a government that manages the most intimate matters of your life regarding health and safety.”
Further, the plan is created to be the “only game in town,” he said. And as people age or get sicker, it includes mandatory “consultations” offering suggestions on how to end life sooner, he said.
The Liberty Counsel staff that did the research was “astonished” by what they found.
J. Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs for Liberty Counsel, said in a commentary the bill reflects he influence of those who now surround President Obama.
“His choice of Harvard professor and self-styled ‘neo-Malthusain’ John Holdren as ‘science czar’ provides the latest and perhaps most trouble example of just how bad American really muffed it last November,” Barber wrote.
“In the name of population control, Holdren has advocated both forced abortion and compulsory sterilization through government-administered tainting of the water supply. In a book he co-authored, entitled ‘Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment,’ Holdren calls for a ‘Planetary Regime’ to enforce mandatory abortions and limit the use of natural resources,” he wrote.
Staver pointed to some of Holdren’s outrageous suggestions, such as implanting sterility capsules in girls at puberty and extracting them only when they obtain government permission to have children. For men, he has suggested putting additives in the water system to cause sterility.
Barber wrote that Holdren has affirmed he believes there is “ample authority” under the U.S. Constitution for population growth to be “regulated.”
“Even … laws requiring compulsory abortion … could be sustained under the existing Constitution,” Holdren suggested.
Nina May, founder of Renaissance Women, added to the arguments. She cited a 1948 Hitchcock movie about murder in which the victim’s body is hidden in plain sight.
“The health care bill that Obama proposes has this theme at its core and has in its crosshairs the Baby Boomer engine that is pulling the derailed economy as it takes its final lap toward retirement. In less than two years, Baby Boomers will begin retiring in multitudes, expecting to reclaim the hard earned money they have been paying into Social Security. But this Health Care Bill, HR3200, has other plans for them,” she wrote.
“Those 65 and older will be required to undergo mandatory ‘end of life’ counseling to determine if they are worthy to continue to not only live, but take much needed resources from those who are younger and more worthy to receive them. Counselors will be trained to discuss how to end life sooner, how to decline nutrition and hydration, how to go into hospice, etc.,” she said.
“This will not be done without coercion. For those who have amassed assets enough to take care of themselves in their old age will have these assets confiscated in the name of fiscal responsibility, because by this time, every citizen will be entered into a national database under the guise of improved efficiency. This database will be run by a type of ‘star chamber,’ appointed by the president, that will determine whether or not you deserve the much needed operation your personal doctor thinks you need,” she said.
The Liberty Counsel analysis also pointed out the government would be allowed to ration health care procedures, prevent “judicial review” of its decision, tell doctors what income they can have, impose new taxes for anyone not having an “acceptable” coverage, regulate whether seniors can have wheelchairs, penalize hospitals or doctors whose patients require “readmission,” prevent the expansion of hospitals and set up procedures for home visits by health care analysts.
Under Section 440, Liberty Counsel said, the government “will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families that expect children.” And Section 194 provides for a program that has the government “coming into your house and teaching/telling you how to parent,” LC said.
WND reported earlier when Betsy McCaughey, the former New York state officer, told former presidential candidate Fred Thompson during an interview on his radio program the health care plan includes consultations for seniors on how to die.
“One of the most shocking things is page 425, where the Congress would make it mandatory absolutely that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session,” she said. “They will tell [them] how to end their life sooner.”
The proposal specifically calls for the consultation to recommend “palliative care and hospice” for seniors in their mandatory counseling sessions. Palliative care and hospice generally focus only on pain relief until death.
The measure requires “an explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available.”
Bishop Sheridan: Catholics Are Called to be a Light in the Darkness
http://www.realcatholictv.com/#
Archbishop Chaput: Politics and the Church’s Role
http://www.realcatholictv.com/#
Life of Young, Vibrant Catholic, Inspires Many to Come Back to the Church
Catholic News Agency, July 31, 2009
The late Gloria Strauss
Seattle, Wash. – The short life of a devout, Catholic, young girl from Seattle has brought many Catholics across the United States back to the Church. Her holy and loving example, as well as her battle with cancer, has drawn others to convert to Catholicism and has inspired the creation of an organization to reach out to families with a loved one facing a chronic illness.
Gloria was born in 1996 to Doug and Kristen Strauss and was like any other seven-year old. She enjoyed playing with her six siblings and friends, dressing up, playing board games, picking flowers and watching the Fox television show, “American Idol.” The young girl also had a special place in her heart for the Rosary and for making people feel good about themselves. However, no one could have predicted the amount of people her brief time on earth would touch.
Cancer diagnosis
CNA spoke with her father, Doug, who explained that one day in 2003 when Gloria was seven years-old, she was hit in the face with a ball resulting in a black eye. When the color returned to normal after the seemingly minor injury, a suspicious bump remained. After two trips to the doctor, she was referred to a specialist who instantly had a hunch it was cancer.
Gloria was diagnosed with a cancer known as neuroblastoma and only given a window of three months to three years to survive. Following the diagnosis, Gloria immediately went into surgery and began chemotherapy treatments. Doug explained that though it was difficult, the family resolved to remain “open to God’s plan in hopes that the family would be strengthened.”
At the time, Doug was a high school basketball coach who knew Seattle Times columnist Jerry Brewer. Brewer had planned to run a single column on the family’s struggles while Doug coached during the season. However, the first column attracted so many readers that the idea expanded into a five-month series of interviews with the Strauss family sharing Gloria’s faith and trust in God with those in Seattle and around the United States.
When Gloria’s condition took a turn for the worse in 2007, the family opened their home for community members to come and pray over her. Doug explained that for three weeks, 50 – 60 people showed up Monday – Friday to pray the Rosary and sing praise and worship songs. Later, when it became too much for the family, five members of the community opened up their homes to continue the prayers for Gloria.
Drawing others to Christ
After Gloria endured seven rounds of chemotherapy, the doctors decided to try a stem-cell transplant using her own stem-cells. Doug said that at that point, he knew that Gloria was at her lowest point. He was desperate and started to pray, “God help me, I don’t understand.”
He heard a voice say, “quality of life.” He was confused, but went to Gloria the next day and asked if she’s had quality of life. He didn’t expect her to understand, but she immediately responded, “yes daddy!” She excitedly added that so many people have started praying because of her illness.
Doug explained that Gloria had a beautiful gift, she was able to draw people to Christ through her cancer. “She taught us all how to carry a cross. Her gift to us was her living example of her commitment to a relationship with God through constant prayer. She always said, “yes.”
Writing in the Seattle Times column, Doug recalled that they “would ask if it was all right to have a healing Mass,” and she would answer, “oh yea!” Other times they would ask: “How about if 50 people come over to pray the Rosary over you tonight?” She’d say, “oh yea!”
“From shots to sickness it always began and ended with the sign of the cross,” Doug continued. “Often doctors would have to stand and wait as she made the sign of the cross and prayed. Amazing to watch!”
It wasn’t just her actions that drew people to Christ, her father also explained that everyone spoke of Gloria’s presence. “She had this presence that allowed people to want to be with her and pray for her.” Even at the age of seven, “she knew her calling to bring people to God through her cancer.”
People from all religions were attracted to Gloria and her family through the front-page column in the Seattle Times. “Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, they all wrote in to the paper talking about how they’ve been impacted by her life,” Doug said. “Everyone knew we were Catholic – we didn’t have to profess it – we wanted prayers from everyone,” Doug continued.
Doug even mentioned a blind man that had written him a letter saying that he had been praying Rosaries for Gloria and wanted to meet her. Miraculously, when she entered the room he could see her dressed in white. The man told Doug however that when she left, he was blind once again.
Though prayers for Gloria kept coming, her cancer continued to spread and she died on September 21, 2007.
Gloria’s impact
Immediately following Gloria’s death, the family realized the large impact that Gloria had on the community.
Doug explained that people came all over to view her body before and after the Rosary. He added that he received a letter from a Lutheran man who attends Eucharistic adoration at a Catholic church who said that he had to go so that he could “see a saint in person.”
Then at the funeral, over 3,200 showed up and the family began to hear stories of how’ Gloria’s life and struggle had transformed lives.
One man from Virginia had read about Gloria and explained that he felt like he was “hit over the head by a 2 x 4.” The man had been on a four-day drinking binge and he completely gave up alcohol after reading the story on her illness and strength of faith.
Not only do the Strausses have a list of others who have quit different drug addictions because of Gloria, but they are aware of at least ten people who have become Catholic directly due to Gloria’s story – and more are continuing to convert. One in particular was a nurse at the Children’s hospital who didn’t grow up going to church. After seeing little Gloria’s faith, she knew she had to do something about it.
According to the Catholic Northwest Progress, one Presbyterian family became Catholic after Gloria attended a camp for ill children and their families. One of the volunteers, Brinn Funai continued to keep in touch with Kristen Strauss, Gloria’s mother, after the week’s activities.
Brinn explained that she had been checking into Catholicism, but meeting Kristen and the Strausses “was a big turning point for me.” They “really helped kin of soften that road so to speak, to coming into the church.”
“I told her right before she died, ‘Gloria, we’re going to become Catholic,’” said Brinn. “And she said, ‘Wow!’” The Funais were received into Catholic Church at Easter 2008.
Not only did the girl’s life, touch individuals, but she also inspired the organization, “Gloria’s Angels.”
Gloria’s Angels
At a point when Gloria’s health continued to fade, the family’s spiritual advisor spoke to Bob Turner, a Seattle business man, about assisting the family in the days following Gloria’s cancer. “Either she was going to experience a miraculous healing or she was going to pass away,” Turner explained. “In either case, [the spiritual advisor] recognized that the Strauss family would have some mission to serve.”
Turner explained that he decided “to bring his business skills into a partnership with the Strauss family to help them honor her and carry on her mission.” After weeks of discernment, Turner and the Strauss family decided that Gloria’s mission could best be carried out by serving families facing life-threatening illnesses.
And so Gloria’s Angels was born.
The organization works to smooth out the “roller coaster ride” that families with a sick member experience. While many agencies exist to assist families in need, oftentimes loved ones are unaware of the services offered or need help with the coordination. Gloria’s Angel’s steps in for guidance to piece everything together.
Obama’s Birth Debate: It’s About Loyalty
By James Lewis, American Thinker, July 31, 2009
The birth debate about Obama is real enough, but it is legally complicated, as analyzed
by legal beagle Andrew McCarthy at National Review. No judge is going to question the Constitutional qualifications of an elected president. I’m sorry, but that’s the practical reality. The judge is going to follow stare decisis – the sheer weight of commitments that cannot be reversed without creating chaos. Once the political system of the United States, the voters, the media, and the politicians themselves are all committed to the proposition that Obama is president, trying to reverse it would mean riots in every city in the nation. At some point even debatable claims become irreversible. That is why Al Franken is now the US Senator from Minnesota, even if his election was corrupt and wrong. It’s water under the bridge. Leave it to history.And yet the Obama “birther” debate is important. What’s important about it is the feeling a growing number of Americans have in their bones that Obama is foreign — to our traditions, loyalties and shared understandings about the nature of America. In a way the legal debate matters less than that bone-deep sense that Obama is fundamentally “Other than American.”
We all recognized George W as a prototypical American — even if you didn’t agree with him or even like him. There he was cutting dry brush around his modest West Texas ranch house, to keep down the fire danger, while the fat and foolish White House punditry stayed huddled back in the air conditioning. Or flying onto the aircraft carrier in a jet trainer after Saddam was overthrown. Or heading straight to walk Ground Zero with the cops and fire fighters right after 9/11. Bush looked at home with those cops, because he was. He likes those guys, and they like him. They are made of the same stuff. Obama isn’t.
Obama is a socialist, which means that his deepest commitment is not to our nation but to the Internationalist Ruling Class. That is why the Left always has to argue that Americans’ love of country will kill off the rest of the world — by global warming, by overpopulation, any excuse will do. The fact that it’s all lies proves the point: The Left must lie in order to convince millions of Americans that their normal feelings of patriotism are evil.
These facts are so obvious that they are not even worth arguing about. Obama’s first international speech — characteristically before getting elected — started with the phrase “Citizens of the World!” Anybody on the Left has to think, “Workers of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” That was the intended message to the left, of course — that’s how David Axelrod thinks, that’s how Obama’s mentors have always thought — going back to his way-left mother and his Kenyan socialist father. The interracial affair between the Kansas anthropologist 20-year-old and the Kenyan socialist was itself a revolutionary act, the way these people think. It was a positive good to bear an interracial child, even if the kid was going to be abandoned by his father and mother. From that point onward the Old Left handled the whole chain of custody. Obama was passed along by leftie sponsors, one after the other. Frank Marshall Davis was the Communist Party guy in Hawaii, and wrote for the Hawaiian Communist Party rag. You can trace it link after link, following the Alinskyite chain all the way to the far left wing of the Chicago Machine, then 20 years of being preached at by Rev. Jeremiah Wright (whose brand of Christianity is only Marxism under a transparent layer of lies).
That’s our Obama, and that’s what he proudly proclaimed: Not Oh Say Can You See/ By the Dawn’s Early Light, but Dreams from My (Kenyan Socialist) Father.
This is not a secret. Obama is foreign to America in a way that has little to do with his birth certificate. He could be American-born and still think in this very anti-American way. A lot of people are. But whatever he is legally, there is not a shred of doubt that he is steeped in an Anti-American way of thinking.
This is what I suspect the birther movement is about. Yes, the legalities are suspect. No, it will never make any practical difference. But most important, the birthers are aware of a deep intuition about Barry Soetoro Barack Hussein Obama: That he is profoundly out of tune with the meaning of America since the Founding. He is out of harmony with this country and this culture, like the dissonant scream of a power-saw biting into steel or concrete. He just grates on the American sensibility.
Obama is a Ruling Class Aristocrat — by intuition, beliefs, and personal egomania. He was born to rule. It’s partly that he has always gone to all the elite schools, from Hawaii to Harvard, just like Michelle. But he was put into those schools by the efforts of the left, which is a Socialist Ruling Class movement. The left in its own vision is always Ruling Class To Be that is being kept unjustly from taking over the world. That’s why they hate real democracy, why they sneer at Coke and fries, and why capitalism is so bad: Because it constant caters to “vulgar” tastes.
(The fact that the left always claims to help the lowest of the low is just a political tactic. By digging up the most resentful victims — by race, class or gender — you bring out the most explosive revolutionary dynamite; it’s the people who are the most envious and resentful, who want nothing more than to flip the world upside-down and watch destruction rain down. That’s why the Left constantly appeals to the “idealism” of teenagers, the natural rebels. They all want to rock the world. And if it’s not teens, it’s illegal immigrants, sexual deviants, the homeless, drug addicts, criminals, the racially oppressed, those who hate themselves, the prostitutes, and the mentally ill. Karl Marx called them the Lumpen-Proletariat, the Eternal Underclass who want to smash whatever is. As the Nazi slogan said it, “Alles Muss Anders Sein” — “Everything Must Be Different.”
The left is about the overthrow of whatever is, whether good or bad. The Eternal Underclass is the cannon fodder of any revolution. They are the lowlifes who can be trusted to burn down the Reichstag, to smash the stores of the Jews — or in Indonesia, of the Chinese — and to hang the rich from the nearest lamp post. When blue collar workers started to make money the Left didn’t rejoice in their new well-being and happiness. Rather, the left just looked for another Underclass: Those who felt oppressed by race, gender, sexual habits, whatever. For the left, any Underclass only exists to be manipulated by the Natural Ruling Class, the Aristocratic Vanguard, the Obamas of this world. That’s the only political strategy of the left. That is why they constantly lie and still believe in their own moral superiority.)
So is Obama American-born? I don’t know. I bet he never comes up with that vault copy birth certificate for us to examine. But it’s never going to matter a hill of beans, because no judge wants to be accused of overthrowing a sitting President of the United States.
But is Obama in tune with the soul of this country as Americans have understood it since 1776?
I think we all know the answer to that.
That is what our political battles will be about, for years and years to come. Don’t expect it to be solved soon. It’s been going on for a century. It didn’t end with American victory in the Cold War. It is most of all a battle for minds and hearts, not for territory — although territory matters. Conservatives helped win the Cold War, but did not win the battle for the schools and universities. That is why Barry Soetoro Barack Hussein Obama is now President.
Gear yourself up, and don’t stop fighting the battle for hearts and minds. It’s all-important.
Off the Charts! Republicans Hope to Defeat Obamacare With a Visual Aid
By Jim Geraghty, National Review, July 31, 2009
There’s little doubt that the chart next to Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa) above was the most famous illustration to come out of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee.
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey wrote, “I take a certain satisfaction in the role a certain chart played in that victory – the chart I created with my staff, depicting the plan’s dozens of new bureaucracies. We captioned it: ‘Simplicity Defined.’ One of Mrs. Clinton’s comments after the defeat of Clinton Care was, ‘We never overcame the chart.’ Bob Dole showcased the memorable spaghetti-like visualization during his 1994 response to President Clinton’s State of the Union address, a powerful cautionary symbol of the sales pitch that preceded it.”
Today, King refers to the old Hillarycare chart regularly in his floor statements, declaring that it “hung on the office in my construction office throughout that entire decade and probably past the change of the millennium. It hung there because it scared the living daylights out of me, as an employer who was providing health insurance for my employees and, of course, my family as well. . . . [This chart] sunk Hillarycare, because the people in this country did not want to create all of this bureaucracy and give all of this control and authority over to the government.”
But the Clintoncare chart may soon be surpassed by the Obamacare chart in attention, scrutiny, and controversy.
When it became clear that another effort would be made at overhauling the nation’s health-care system, House Minority Leader John Boehner and other Republicans asked the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) to draw up another chart, depicting how the system would work under House Democrats’ draft legislation. Each staff economist was directed to go through the bill, spotlighting new agencies, mandates, and regulations. Then the bill was dissected a second time, line by line, to ensure that all the parts were accurately represented. The result was this:
NOTE: The parts in white already exist, and the colored boxes are the new entities, offices, requirements, reports, and subsidies the Democrats’ bill would create.
Needless to say, this panorama of jelly beans on top of a computer’s circuit board isn’t pretty; to the average American, it looks like a labyrinth to navigate before receiving care. Some Obamacare backers claimed that the myriad colors make it seem unnecessarily complex, but there is a method to the seeming madness: The parts in white already exist, and the colored boxes are the new entities, offices, requirements, reports, and subsidies the Democrats’ bill would create.
Unsurprisingly, Democrats objected and sent a letter to the JEC minority staff claiming eight errors. Some of them were laughable. Democrats complained that “according to the chart, the only outflows from the IRS will be to the Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund,” when in fact there’s a red arrow pointing from the IRS to the Department of the Treasury. Similarly, Democrats claimed that “the Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund is depicted as simply a recipient of IRS funds, with no outflow,” when in fact the chart depicts a red line exiting the right side of the HIE Trust Fund that connects to the Treasury Department. Perhaps they should have looked at a larger version.
JEC Republicans did concede one error, that they’d placed the words “families with 4x poverty level” near the Low-Income Subsidy, when it belonged with the health (individual) affordability credit. They noted that if they’d omitted “families with 4x poverty level” entirely, it would have had no impact on the overall structure. When summarizing 1,000 pages, getting a detail wrong is regrettable, but a pretty good batting average.
“The chart first revealed to the public what they long suspected – that the Democrats’ plan would interject an unbelievable bureaucratic mess in between them and their doctor,” says Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas), the ranking Republican on the Joint Economic Committee. “It was frightening, and (The chart) has helped galvanize middle-class America against the government-run plan.”
Republicans wanted to use the chart in their official mail to constituents – referred to as “franked” or free mail. The three Democrats on the Franking Commission said the GOP could not use it, charging that it was inaccurate. (They are also attempting to ban any franked mail that refers to “government-run health care,” requiring the euphemism “the public option” instead.) While franked mail is supposed to be nonpartisan, no one I spoke to on Capitol Hill, staffer or member, can recall a similar level of censorship in communications with constituents.
At The New Republic, Jonathan Cohn and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation put together a similarly complicated chart illustrating the current system of providing health care, aiming to reinforce the point that “the U.S. health care system is already a mind-numbing web of institutions, agencies, and businesses. . . . While that may be self-evident to anybody who’s ever had to handle a billing dispute between insurer and hospital, it’s easy to lose sight of that in the scrum of congressional debate.”
Fair enough, but the current system’s complications don’t negate the fact that the House Democrats’ bill would create additional layers of bureaucracy. Beyond that, there’s a matter of the devil you know versus the devil you don’t; as flawed as the current system is, it’s the one Americans are most familiar with dealing with. Everyone comes to the Obamacare version a rookie, with no real sense of how all the moving parts interact.
The new JEC chart has appeared in quite a few media outlets (and if you want a closer look, you can find a PDF here); it’s even been mocked on The Daily Show as “scary-looking, disingenuous health-care reform op-art.” (The fact that it appeared on Fox News was sufficient for Stewart to declare it disingenuous.) Cracking jokes may be sufficient for Jon Stewart; to remake the American health-care system in their own image, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama will need more. Much more.
- Jim Geraghty writes the Campaign Spot for NRO.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzE0MjJhNWM5MDEwYzExNDhmNjJlMjY1ODc5YTBkYTM=
YIKES! How Will ‘the’ Government Handle Health Care if After Only Six Days “Cash for Clunkers” Came to a Screeching Halt?
as part of the federal Cash for Clunkers program.
It may have been the best $1 billion the government has spent so far this year.
Business was humming at Crestmont Toyota/Volkswagen Thursday night as salespeople rushed back to work on news that the government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program was being suspended.
It’s the deal where you get up to $4,500 for your older low mileage beast if you buy a new car with more efficient fuel consumption.
On Thursday night we learned the program was only good until midnight, all because of a backlog of red tape. So the salespeople were trying to get their deals through the government’s Web site.
“People are loving it. It’s wonderful. It’s a great stimulus package,” salesman Andy Beloff said.
But when asked if the government was running the program well, Beloff said, “No. No.”
The dealership’s lot had roughly 40 clunkers waiting to be shipped to the junkyard. Each one has already been replaced by a brand new lower mileage car. The program only started last Friday. It’s a victim of its own success.
But the money may be running out faster than anyone imagined.
With almost 23,000 deals already processed and tens of thousands more in the pipeline, it’s possible the $1 billion allocated for the program might have already run out and into the pockets of people like Christie Acosta, who knew a good deal when she saw one. Continue reading
The god Who Bleeds
By Jonah Goldberg, National Review, July 31, 2009
In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, Captain Kirk is mistaken for a god by inhabitants of a planet of Native Americans (it’s a long story). The illusion works for Kirk until a jealous shaman cuts Kirk’s hand, revealing that the divine being is just a man after all. “Behold! A god who bleeds!” the shaman mocks, exposing Kirk as a fraud to the rest of the tribe.
It may sound like a stretch — and, let’s be fair, it is — but I keep thinking of that episode when I look Barack Obama’s poll numbers these days.
He’s bleeding on every front. The latest Pew survey shows that only 38 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, fewer than half of respondents (48 percent) say Obama can be trusted to keep his word. Gallup has his approval rating at a new low of 52 percent, and Rasmussen has it below 50 percent for the first time.
On almost every domestic issue, polls show that support for Obama and his agenda is plummeting, and that the Democratic party’s advantages over Republicans on the economy, taxes, the deficit, and health care have been erased or severely reduced.
All presidents go through rough patches, and Obama’s no exception. Odds are his poll numbers will get better — and worse — in the years to come. All of this is typical.
But this misses a crucial point: Obama isn’t supposed to be a typical politician. He was supposed to be The One. He was supposed to change Washington. Transcend race. Fix souls. Bake twelve-minute brownies in seven minutes.
Oprah promised Obama would help us “evolve to a higher plane.” Deepak Chopra said Obama’s presidency represented “a quantum leap in American consciousness.” Last month, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas proclaimed that Obama stood “above the country, above — above the world, he’s sort of God.”
Well, now he’s the god who bleeds, and once you’re the god who bleeds, it’s hard to get the divinity back in the tube, as it were.
Obama undoubtedly has major accomplishments ahead of him, but in a real way the Obama presidency is over. His messianic hopey-changiness has been exposed for what it was, and what it could only be: a rich cocktail of pie-eyed idealism, campaign sloganeering, and profound arrogance.
As president, he’s tried to apply the post-partisan gloss of his campaign rhetoric to the hyper-partisan dross of his agenda. And he’s fooling fewer people every day.
Indeed, the one unifying theme of his presidency so far has been Obama’s relentless campaigning for a job he already has. That makes sense, because that’s really all Obama knows how to do. He’s had no significant experience crafting major legislation. He has next to no experience governing at all.
But he’s great at giving speeches, holding town halls, and chitchatting with reporters. So that’s largely what he does as president. The problem is that campaigning is different from governing. The former requires convincing promises about what you will do; the latter requires convincing arguments for what you are doing. He’s good at the former, not so good at the latter. Or as columnist Michael Barone puts it, he’s good at aura, bad at argument.
It’s revealing that liberals suddenly want Obama to spare the god and use the rod. Specifically, as Dick Polman notes in the Philadelphia Inquirer, they want Obama to channel Lyndon Johnson (whom no one confused for a quantum leap in our consciousness). Liberal historian Doris Kearns Goodwin says she wants BHO to go LBJ: “to take charge, to draw lines, to pressure, to threaten, to cajole.” Liberal activist Dean Baker says Obama should “get the list of every hardball nasty political ploy” that Johnson ever deployed.
As Polman rightly notes, this is crazy talk for the simple reason that Obama has nothing like LBJ’s experience, skill set, or treasure trove of chits and political IOUs. Obama can no more decide to become LBJ than Carrot Top can decide to become Laurence Olivier.
Now, just as critics predicted, Obama needs on-the-job training to become a president, because he’s a god no more.
— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of
National Review Online and the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.
Rabid Liberals v. Blue Dog Dems
Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, July 30, 2009 – Thursday
All bets may be off in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where talk of a health care compromise between moderate and liberal Democrats has dominated the Hill news. Chairman Harry Waxman (D-Calif.) is leading the mark-up of H.R. 3200 in hopes of moving the bill closer to a Committee vote. But the shift toward a more moderate proposal is riling liberals, who say the party is conceding too much to its more conservative members. While the details are not entirely clear, whatever deal is currently on the table does not include protection for taxpayers or the unborn.If the debate continues today, as we expect it will, Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is prepared to introduce four amendments that would prohibit the government from dragging taxpayers into the abortion business as part of the overhaul. His Committee will have to work quickly if it hopes to finalize the language before the House is scheduled to adjourn on Friday.
However, the next two days may not be as important in shaping the debate as the next two months. These leaders are packing up to come home, and we need you to make them feel the pressure once they get there. Make a habit of attending any townhall meetings in your area and contact your representatives regularly during the August recess. Encourage them to push for real reform that protects life and doesn’t raise costs.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) is unveiling a plan today that may do just that. In its alternative proposal, members included specific language prohibiting taxpayer-funded abortion. “No funds,” it states, “authorized under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion…”
Listen to FRCAction’s health care webcast
PADRE PIO REFLECTIONS: Loving Those We Don’t Like Very Much
We must consider our neighbor in relationship to God, who wants us to love him…and we are to be interested in him even when this is distasteful to us. The resistance of the inferior part of our soul will be overcome by the frequent performance of good acts. To this end, however, we must center our prayers and meditations on the love of our neighbor, having first implored the love of God. We must ask for the grace to love especially those we do not like very much.
St. Francis de Sales
FRC to Planned Parenthood: Let’s Debate
Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, July 30, 2009 – Thursday
Yesterday I couldn’t help notice the public accusations from the nation’s largest abortion providers that claimed FRC’s latest commercial on health care reform is misleading. In it, we warn Americans that the current proposals will lead to an abortion mandate–something Planned Parenthood has actively lobbied for. In fact, several others in the abortion movement have made public statements to the same effect, demanding that Congress include in any health care overhaul “the full range of reproductive health services, including contraception, maternity care, and abortion care“ (November 2008).
Together with NARAL, Planned Parenthood has claimed they should be eligible for federal funds because 90% of their health care services are not abortion-related. Even if that claim were valid, Planned Parenthood is still the leading abortion provider in the country, and public records confirm that Planned Parenthood receives almost one-third of their clinic income from abortion (of which they perform 300,000 a year)–not other services. FRC opposes taxpayer- funded abortion through health care insurance or any other government plan, and over 71% of Americans agree with us (Zogby 2008).
This afternoon I couriered a letter to the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, inviting her to debate the question of taxpayer-funded abortion and whether or not citizens would be forced to fund abortion under the current healthcare reform bills.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AWARDS ABORTION ADVOCATES PRESIDENTIAL MEDALS OF FREEDOM
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — President Barack Obama today named 16 recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed on its citizens. Obama’s group of recipients includes abortion advocates who have repeatedly earned condemnation from the pro-life movement.
http://www.lifenews.com/nat5301.html
QB Tim Tebow, the First Home-Schooled Athlete to be Nominated for Heisman Trophy, Stuns Reporters
….the football star told the reporters that he believes that the publicity given to his mother’s story has helped other women choose not to abort their unborn children. Tebow’s mother..was pressured to abort Tebow following a life-threatening infection she suffered while pregnant with him….
By John Jalsevac, July 30, 2009, LifeSiteNews.com
Last week Florida Gators Quarterback Tim Tebow’s photo may have graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, the same magazine that is best known for its annual “swimsuit issue,” but the contrast between the two cover stories couldn’t have been more glaring.
At 21 years of age and graced with boyish good looks, Tebow is one of the most talked about rising stars of the NCAA; but the football superstar literally left reporters speechless last week when he answered a question during a press conference about whether or not he is “saving himself” for marriage.
“Yes I am,” said Tebow briefly, who then indicated he was ready for the next question. However, in the video of the press conference, a reporter is heard stumbling over his words in the background as he tries to ask a follow-up question. Tebow then laughs, obviously reacting to the reactions of the reporters in the room.
“I think y’all were stunned by that,” he says. “Y’all can’t even ask a question. Wow. I mean, I was ready for that question. I don’t think y’all were.”
It wasn’t the only controversial remark that Tebow made that day. In response to another question about whether or not people may be tired of the volume of coverage devoted to the young football star, Tebow, a devout Christian, said that the level of exposure he receives is a mixed blessing. However, he said, he looks at the positive side that, thanks to his fame, he has been able to share his Christian faith with so many people.
In addition, the football star told the reporters that he believes that the publicity given to his mother’s story has helped other women choose not to abort their unborn children. Tebow’s mother, who serves as a Christian missionary together with her husband, was pressured to abort Tebow following a life-threatening infection she suffered while pregnant with him. Doctors pressured her to abort her son to save her own life, but she ultimately resisted the pressure and both mother and child survived the birth.
“There has been a lot of people that have been encouraged not to have an abortion because they heard the story of my mom, or they have been encouraged because they have heard me give my faith on TV or in a report or something,” said Tebow.
“You know what, although there has been a backlash, oh, well. You know what, I’ll deal with it if I have to. It’s not a big deal to me because of the kids and people that have been encouraged by the stories we have tried to tell and by the life that I’ve tried to live.”
Growing up Tebow would often help his parents with their Christian mission work in the Philippines. He was homeschooled by his mother, who instilled in her children strong Christian values.
Tebow was the first home-schooled athlete to be nominated for the Heisman Trophy. “That’s really cool,” he said at the time. “A lot of times people have this stereotype of homeschoolers as not very athletic – it’s like, go win a spelling bee or something like that – it’s an honor for me to be the first one to do that.”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09073001.html
Glenn Beck: Obama Believes Life Begins at Conception?
Founder’s Quote Daily
“If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.”
–Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788
http://patriotpost.us/
GOSPEL & MEDITATION: Lack of Faith
Father Ernest Daly, LC
Matthew 13:54-58
Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue. They were astonished and said, “Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Is he not the carpenter´s son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters all with us? Where did this man get all this?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own house.” And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith.
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe in your power. I know that you are the Lord of all history. I trust that you are guiding my life. Thank you for showing me that you will triumph. Thank you for the triumph you have already achieved in my heart and in the hearts of so many people. I want to allow you to have total control over my life.
Petition: Lord, increase my faith in you.
1. Too Much Familiarity The people of Nazareth thought they knew all about Jesus. He had grown up among them. Apparently they had not seen anything extraordinary about him before he started his public ministry. They thought he was just like everyone else. So when they hear that he is doing miracles and teaching with authority, they do not believe it. Sometimes I also run the danger of putting limits on Christ’s power in my life. I see the unimpressive circumstances of my life and the recurrence of the same old problems. I do not believe that Christ can do something supernatural in the midst of an ordinary situation. Today I am receiving an invitation to step beyond the routine and believe more deeply in the power of Christ.
2. An Unwelcome Prophet The solution to their deepest problems was in their own backyard. Yet, the people of Nazareth felt that such a familiar figure could not bring anything extraordinary. When the Church sometimes challenges me with some of her teachings – on charity, on family life, on the need to be courageous witnesses -, do I sometimes find excuses, like saying that my circumstances are too difficult, or the Church does not understand my situation? Do I sometimes let the prophetic voice of the Church die in my heart? When I feel challenged by the Gospel and by the Church I should be thankful. Christ is inviting me to discover the deepest meaning of my life. He is giving me a chance to allow his presence to make a deep change in my life. He is allowing me to discover him in faith and is taking me beyond my comfort zone to the level of the coming of his Kingdom.
3. A Miracle Worker in Waiting What sort of miracles does Christ want to do in my life? Christ has a plan to make my life a luminous witness to the power of his grace. He wants to fill my life with his holiness and help me be a light for others. If I can shake off my superficiality and lack of faith, I will discover the powerful presence of the Savior who helps me live each moment with depth and love. He can do miracles in my life. He can help me live the virtues which are most costly for me. Am I willing to take a risk for Christ and trust him totally?
Conversation with Christ: Lord, I know you want to do great things in my life. Help me to see how you can transform the ordinary, seemingly unimportant circumstances of my day into moments when your grace triumphs. Enable me to be docile to your Holy Spirit, so he can do miracles in my life.
Resolution: I will increase my faith in Christ by taking a risk for him in some aspect of my spiritual or apostolic life.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
SAINT OF THE DAY: ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA
St. Ignatius founder of the Society of Jesus (more commonly known as the Jesuits) in 1534 and created the Spiritual Exercises, which popularized guided retreats in the Church and offered guidelines for discernment that are still used today.
He was born in Loyola, Spain, in 1491, the youngest of 12 children of a noble family. He served as a page in the Spanish cout of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.
He became a soldier in the Spanish army in 1517 and wounded his leg during the siege of Pampeluna in 1521. During his recuperation, the only books to which he had access were one on the lives of the saints and the “Life of Christ” by Ludolph the Carthusian. It was during this time that he experienced a profound conversion.
On his recovery he took a vow of chastity, hung his sword before the altar of the Virgin of Montserrat. He spent another year in contemplation in a cave and then five years in the Holy Land, converting the Muslims. He then began six years of theological study. He founded the Society of Jesus six years after he earned his theology degree; it received papal approval in 1541. He died in Rome in 1556.
The Jesuits remain numerous today. There are currently more than 500 Jesuit universities and colleges worldwide.
California Public Schools Curriculum Requires First Graders Study ‘Same-Sex Unions’
By Adam Brickley, 6/2/2009
As part of the curriculum, second graders will be exposed to books like ‘And Tango Makes Three’–a story book about two male penguins who hatch an egg and raise a chick together in New York’s Central Park Zoo–and first graders will see ‘Who’s in a Family?’ which exposes students to a variety of “different” family structures.
Parents will not be allowed to opt their first graders out of the curriculum.
Members of the Alameda United School District (AUSD) school board voted 3 to 2 last week to implement the “Safe Schools” curriculum, which supporters say is aimed at stopping anti-homosexual bullying in schools.
The program includes a between one and four lessons each year between grades 1 and 5 to introduce students to “LGBT” (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual) issues.
As part of the curriculum, second graders will be exposed to books like “And Tango Makes Three”–a story book about two male penguins who hatch an egg and raise a chick together in New York’s Central Park Zoo–and first graders will see “Who’s in a Family?” which exposes students to a variety of “different” family structures.
The discussion plan for “Who’s In a Family?” includes asking students to identify a type of family they see in the book.
Teachers are instructed:
“If a student responds that one family in the book is made up of a mother, a father, and two children and a cat, you may acknowledge that some families look like this, but ask students for other examples of what a family can look like.”Unlike for health and sexual education classes, the district will not allow parents to opt their children out of the LGBT curriculum–angering parents and pro-family groups.
“This will be done whether parents like it or not, and it shows the hostility against parental rights and traditional family values,” said Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families, speaking for parents who, he said, are adamantly opposed to the plan. Continue reading
Pelosi D..da..du…da..oubletalks on Abortion in Health Care
This is amazing. This woman is the third most powerful person in America. Hear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) duck, weave, stammer, and prevaricate in response to a question from CNN’s John King about whether the Obama health bill will pay for abortions (July 26, 2009).
Catholic Schools Are Saving New Orleans’ Children
Since the Katrina disaster, the schools of the Archdiocese of New Orleans have swelled to double the enrollment of the local public schools.
By Deal W. Hudson, Ph.D. , Inside Catholic, 7/24/2009
NEW ORLEANS (Inside Catholic) – Catholics Teach the Children of New Orleans Since the Katrina disaster, the schools of the Archdiocese of New Orleans have swelled to double the enrollment of the local public schools — 40,000 to 20,000. Rev. Neal McDermott, O.P., superintendent of the Catholic schools, told me yesterday that the archdiocese is facing a financial crunch when the $10 million in Catholic Charities money, allocated in 2006 to help the schools following the hurricane, runs out.
“Beginning in June 2010, we will have to find $700,000 a year to replace those funds,” he said. (Gov. Bobby Jindal eased some of the financial burden by getting a voucher bill passed for kindergarten through fourth grade.)
Since all the public schools in New Orleans have been officially pronounced “failing,” parents have been moving their children to charter schools and private schools, but above all to Catholic schools, where 60 percent of the 40,000 students are non-Catholic.
This past spring the Catholic high schools graduated 2,785 seniors, with an amazing 96 percent being admitted into college and another 2 percent into the military. That compares with a 40 percent graduation rate in the public schools.
“We teach students from the same neighborhood as the public schools, but we act in loco parentis, because many of these children get little supervision or food at home,” Father McDermott explains. The Catholic schools provide their students breakfast, lunch, a snack, and afternoon supervision so that homework is completed before the students go home.
Father McDermott had to consolidate a number of “central schools” in the inner city to accommodate the demand for Catholic education. One of the archdiocesan schools is the Cathedral Academy in the French Quarter, where five Nashville Dominicans are teaching. These five sisters walked through the streets of the Quarter recruiting students, including some from a cruise ship docked in the harbor, where the families of firemen and other service personnel were living after the floods.
“The sisters are applauded wherever they go,” Father McDermott told me.
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=34142
Napolitano Lets the Word ‘Terror’ Come Out of the Closet at Homeland Security
Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano
OUT: ”Man-Caused Disasters”
IN: Terror, Terrorists, Terrorism
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who drew criticism for not mentioning the word “terror” during her first appearance before Congress in February, used the term or its variants 23 times during a 30-minute speech before the Council of Foreign Relations on Wednesday.
By Joshua Rhett Miller, FOXNews.com
It’s OK to call them terrorists again…..CONTINUED…… Continue reading →